


that bitter taste of waiting

by badskeletonpuns



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pneumonia, Sick Character, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 23:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19386451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns
Summary: It comes on faster than anyone expects, and it doesn't help that Ben conceals it for as long as possible. He'll be fine, he keeps telling himself, as though by telling himself that enough times he can make it true.Or in other words, Ben gets very, very sick. Sammy deals with the consequences. It's intended to have romantic samben overtones, but actual content could be read as platonic.





	that bitter taste of waiting

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [kfamchallenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/kfamchallenge) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> This is tagged both platonic and romantic SamBen because I don't care which one you go for, as long as it's all about their profound bond.
> 
> I would like some hard-hitting hospital drama, please. If at all possible, I'd like Ben to be the one who ends up in a hospital bed, but I'll take Sammy if that's more your cup of tea. It could be the consequence of a car accident, a risky stunt gone wrong, or a Mysterious Illness. I'm imagining uncomfortable nights spent in a hospital visitor's chair, or maybe a sudden emergency procedure that leads to anxiety-filled hours of waiting. If Ben's the one who's sick, there could be some Sammy yelling at doctors because he doesn't know where to put his emotions, and maybe some bonding between Betty Arnold and Sammy, just because those two would be terrible at getting each other to stop imagining the worst.
> 
> If you're writing this, please give it a happy ending, because I am here for the angst, but not really here for major character death. If you're arting it, just go for the angst and I'll imagine my own happy ending. :D

The clinic won’t let Sammy in past the lobby because he isn’t a blood relation. 

_ So much for small town hospitality, _ he thinks, and the thought tastes like bile in the back of his throat.

* * *

 

God, if only he’d noticed sooner.  

Ben knows something is wrong far, far earlier, but he’ll be damned before he admits it. It’s a cold. That’s all. Plenty of adults get colds in midwinter, and if he complained he just  _ knows  _ everyone would tease him for the next eight years about catching the man-cold. So he’s a little short of breath and constantly sucking on a cough drop to avoid heaving, painful fits of coughing. 

He’s fine. 

He says as much to Sammy, insistent on working through a voice cracked and hoarse. 

“I just need—” He has to stop to catch his breath. “To sit down a minute. Drink some water.” 

“Ben, you  _ are _ sitting down.” 

They’re on one of their last few breaks of the night. Ben has to think for a minute to remember which; it’s the second to last, he guesses, but can’t be certain. “M’fine,” he insists. He just has to make it through the next half hour, forty-five minutes, whatever time is left. And then he can go home and sleep for the next twenty-four hours and he’ll be  _ fine _ . 

“Ben—” Sammy tries again, reaching out to grab Ben’s arm. Ben flinches away, but not fast enough. Sammy hardly brushes Ben’s forearm and his whole face drops into something harsh and anxious. “Jesus, you’re burning up!” 

“Space, Sammy, ever heard of it?” Ben snaps, ignoring the way his voice breaks on Sammy’s name. It hurts to suck in a whole breath, hurts like something twisting deep behind his ribs. He shoves his chair back and stands.

The world reels around him, and he sits back down hard enough to trigger another coughing fit.

Before he passes out, he gets a good enough look at the crook of his elbow to see clumps of sticky, nauseatingly green mucus caught in his sleeves. 

* * *

 

Sammy rests his head in his hands. He’s already flipped through the stack of magazines on the clinic’s table—back issues of  _ People _ magazine and outdated parenting information can’t really keep his attention right now—and irritated the few other patrons by pacing back and forth.

He’d called Betty as soon as it was clear the nurses wouldn’t let him into Ben’s room. She was on her way, but she lived just far enough out of town that it would be at least another five minutes till she got here. 

The King Falls clinic is smaller than the hospital down in Big Pine. Outside of flu shot season and the occasional heat-stroked or frostbitten tourists, depending on the time of year, it doesn’t see much business. 

So Sammy has no fucking idea why this is taking so goddamn long. 

Every time a staff member comes into the room he starts in his seat, but it’s only ever to tell someone picking up a prescription that it’s ready, or to talk to one of the desk attendants, or a hundred other things that Sammy couldn’t give two shits about. 

He slumps back in his chair and throws his arms over his face.  _ God _ . He can’t go in to help Ben, he couldn’t help him before, couldn’t even  _ notice _ until Ben had to be fucking hospitalized.  _ What a shitty fucking friend _ . 

A little voice in his head says he’d just be getting in the clinicians’ way if he went in there, but a much louder one insists that Ben needs him, and he needs to be there for Ben. 

After what feels like hours of no one coming in or out of the clinic’s examination room doors, he finally resolves to go ask at the front desk. Even if he wasn’t—he and Ben weren’t—they weren’t anything, yet, officially, the people in the town knew them, right? Even people who didn’t stay up to listen to the regular show had  _ heard  _ of Sammy and Ben, knew how good of friends they were. They had to let him in. 

The moment he stands, the bell on the outer door rings and Betty Arnold, blessed hurricane that she is, pushes through the door and heads to the front desk. Sammy coasts in her wake, letting her kind but forceful voice lead the way.

It doesn’t take more than a few words from her to get the two of them through the doors. There are only a few examination rooms; Ben isn’t in any of them. They’ve moved him, a doctor explains as she does her best to keep up with Betty and Sammy’s near-jog, to one of their in-patient rooms. 

“We have to wait for the mobile x-ray unit.” She tries to push her glasses up her nose while walking, but it just knocks them off-kilter. “One of our other doctors was making an emergency house call this morning, and we only have the one machine.” 

“What’s wrong? Is Ben going to be okay? I thought he was just sick, I—”

The doctor cuts off Sammy’s babbling by stopping directly in front of him and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Mr. Arnold is going to be okay, we just want to check the extent of inflammation in his lungs. It’s looking like he has pneumonia. He’s a healthy young man, so there shouldn’t be anything to worry about, but the disease did come on pretty strong, so we’re going to do a few more tests. All routine stuff.” She pats his shoulder a few times. 

The gesture probably isn’t intended to be condescending, but Sammy still wants to shake it off. “Now,” she continues, “normally, we only let spouses and relatives into the room with patients—”

It’s Betty’s turn to interrupt. “Sammy’s family,” she says, and her tone leaves no room for dismissal. 

“I… right.” The doctor pushes up her glasses again and shakes her head. “This is his room. Now, he’s sleeping at the moment, so your job is to keep quiet and let him rest. Until the tests come back, that rest is going to be the most important thing we can do for Mr. Arnold.”

Betty glances at the doctor’s name tag. “Doctor Fielding, right?” She smiles at her, every inch the kind old lady. “Thank you for letting us in. I’m sure Ben will appreciate us being there whenever he does wake up.”

Doctor Fielding just nods and lets them into the room. 

It takes a lot of self control for Sammy to let Betty in first. She’s Ben’s mom, she deserves it, but… he can’t shake the last sight he’d had of Ben. 

* * *

 

Ben had woken up in Sammy’s car on the way to the clinic and immediately descended into a fit of coughing that seemed to tear him in half. 

Sammy couldn’t do anything except step on the gas. 

By the time they reached the small clinic—the only bigger hospital was out in Big Pine—Ben had stopped coughing, but… His breathing hadn’t sounded right. Sammy had practically had to carry him into the lobby. 

Doctors had rushed him into an examination room in minutes, which was great, super cool, Ben needed that care. 

But they’d left Sammy behind. And Ben had looked so small, surrounded by all the medical staff. The force of his personality tended to make up for his lack of height most of the time. When he wasn’t talking or gesturing, just coughing and coughing, the sound like wet paper tearing, it made him seem so much more fragile. 

* * *

 

Now, upon seeing Ben in the hospital bed, he looks just as delicate. 

There isn’t much equipment around him, just an IV and one of those finger clip things hooked up to another machine. 

Betty stands at the foot of his bed. Sammy can’t see her face, but the slump in her shoulders says a lot about her state of mind.

“At least he’s not still coughing,” he ventures. 

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it for me, Sammy.” Betty takes a step back to stand next to Sammy. “You can hear his breath rattling from here just as well as I can.” She pulls a chair up to the side of Ben’s bed not blocked by medical equipment and sits down, careful not to lean on the mattress and move Ben around. 

Sammy sits next to her. 

The room is quiet, save for the consistent white noise of the machines and the odd rasp at the end of every breath Ben takes. 

He should say something. That was what a good friend would do, right? He’d help Ben in the only way he could, by helping Ben’s mom. 

Every time Sammy tries to think of something to say, Ben wheezes in a particularly painful sounding breath or shivers in his sleep, and whatever words Sammy could have stumbled over would vanish. 

Betty doesn’t make any effort to continue a conversation either, seemingly willing to sit between her son and his best friend, waiting until the doctors came back. 

The doors to Ben’s room open almost silently. Doctor Fielding lets herself in, carrying a clipboard. Sammy stands so quickly he had to steady himself on his chair, but when he opens his mouth, he can’t think of the first thing to ask. 

_ Is he okay? What can we do? What should I have done, I  _ know _ I should have done something more. _

“You two can sit back down,” Doctor Fielding says. “I’ve got some new information for you!” 

He hadn’t realized that Betty had been standing beside him until this moment. Neither of them sit. 

“The blood tests are all in—Mr. Arnold does have bacterial pneumonia and it can get pretty nasty, but we’re going to get him on a set of antibiotics, get him plenty of rest and fluids, and he should be just fine. No need to worry.” 

_ Too fucking late _ , Sammy wants to shout. 

“Can he come home?” Betty asks.

Doctor Fielding hesitates for just a fraction of a second. “We’ll see about that after the chest x-ray, okay?” 

Sammy would guess she’s just putting off sharing an answer she already knows. 

He hopes he’s just being pessimistic. 

Sammy hates the x-ray machine on sight. 

Neither he nor Betty are allowed in the room while it’s being used, but just seeing the thing’s intentionally unobtrusive smooth, white lines and the way it looms over Ben even while inactive sets Sammy’s teeth on edge. They’re shooed out by nurses; Betty’s best kind-but-stern insistence failing in the face of Proper Medical Procedure. Sammy can  _ hear _ the nurses capitalize the words every time they say it. 

So they go. 

Betty slumps into the first chair in the private waiting room. (Sammy’s fairly certain it’s just one of the empty examination rooms and the doctors just didn’t want them and their anxieties upsetting the other patients.) He can’t stand to sit and wait again, so he paces. 

It’s a short room—barely seven steps from one to the other. At least for Sammy, it is. It’d probably take Ben ten steps to keep up with him. 

He blinks, and sees Ben crumpling onto the station floor again while Sammy jumped to grab him before he hit the ground. 

“Sammy!” Betty says, louder than usual for a clinic room. That was probably not the first time she’d said his name trying to get his attention.

“Yes, yeah, I’m here.” He stops at one end of the room, about a foot from a poster advertising free flu shots, which is a little too on the nose for him right now. 

“Would you like to sit down, perhaps?” she says, dryly gesturing at one of the other plastic chairs. 

“Honestly, Mrs. Arnold—”

“Betty. I meant it when I said you were family, and family doesn’t call me Mrs. Arnold.” 

Sammy decidedly does not have the energy to argue with her on this point, whether he feels like he deserves that title or does not. “Betty. I appreciate it, but I’m fine here.” 

“Bullshit. I’m tired just looking at you.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Now sit.” 

He sat. “I’m sorry, Mrs—Betty.”

“What for?” 

“I should have noticed sooner.” Sammy shakes his head. “Jesus, I sit next to him every day, I just—we fucking  _ live _ together! I should know stuff like this.” 

“Sammy, you’re a lot more of an idiot than I thought if you believe my son isn’t stubborn enough to try and pretend his way out of pneumonia without anyone noticing. And,” she grins. Even though it’s sharp and bitter, somewhere in there is an echo of Ben’s smile, the one Sammy sees just about every night. “You better believe I think you’re at least a bit of an idiot for agreeing to live with him in the first place.” 

Sammy can’t help but laugh. “You give me too much credit. Ben’s probably the best roommate I’ve ever had.” 

It’s true, even if it hurts to admit. He’d loved Jack so much for so long, it feels like a betrayal to think that anything could be better than that. 

But he just has to think of that sunshine smile of Ben’s again, and he knows this—whatever it is, that they have—he knows it’s better. He knows it’s the  _ best. _

“You love him, don’t you,” Betty observes after a moment of silence. She isn’t asking. 

Sammy stiffens. “I—he’s my best friend!” 

“It’s okay. May I touch you?” She’s smiling again, and it’s genuine this time. Softer. Sammy nods tentatively, and Betty takes his hand. “I know you’re best friends. You know that’s not what I meant.” 

Sammy tips his head back against the wall and shuts his eyes against the fluorescent-bright headache he’s developing. “... I do.” 

“He’s easy to love.” She squeezes his hand once before letting go.

They don’t say anything else until Doctor Fielding sticks her head in through the door. “How are we doing in here? Ready for some x-ray results?” 

“We were ready half an hour ago,” Sammy mutters. Doctor Fielding’s professional cheeriness doesn’t waver, even though she most likely heard him. Sammy can’t bring himself to care. 

“Now, he is awake—”

Betty and Sammy snap to attention at that, and they hurry over to Doctor Fielding. 

“Can we see him—”

“How is he?”

“Hold your horses, everybody! We’ll get there. He does still need to rest, so no exciting him, okay? Before then, though, let’s talk about this x-ray.” 

The x-ray could be a prop from a hospital tv show, for all Sammy knows about it. Doctor Fielding goes on about the clouding in the lungs and infection and the need for deep breathing exercises to clear out Ben’s lungs. 

He can’t stand it for a second longer. “Can we see him?” 

Doctor Fielding, cut off in the middle of a description of the antibiotics Ben is going to need, blinks at him. “Mr. Stevens. Ben’s co-host, right? We may not be as large or bustling of a hospital as you’re used to in the big city, but we do still need to operate on our schedule, and—”

“I don’t care!” Sammy shouts. There’s silence in the wake of his voice, and he grits his teeth. “Doctor Fielding. Please, please, let me see him.” 

Betty clears her throat. “How about Sammy goes in to see him first? Doctor, you can keep telling me about the medication schedule.” 

Doctor Fielding opens her mouth, probably to spout more bullshit about relatives only in hospital rooms, but Sammy shoulders past her and half-walks, half-jogs down the hallway. 

He’s not enough of a dick to bust into Ben’s room guns blazing, though. So Sammy pauses outside his room, taking a second to pull his hair back into a neater ponytail and breathe in and out a few times. Ben needs rest, Ben needs calm, and that’s what Sammy’s going to give him. 

He opens the door slowly, until he hears that hacking cough and drops all pretense of calm to rush to Ben’s side. 

“Ben, Benny, are you okay?” 

Ben coughs twice more before his breathing clears, and then he’s smiling up at Sammy. “You’re still here,” he rasps, and he doesn’t even tell Sammy off for the Benny thing. 

“Of course,” Sammy says, blinking away tears. “Of course, Ben, I was never gonna leave you here.”

“Were you never gonna give—”

Sammy recognizes that slant to Ben’s grin, even when it’s accompanied by ashen shadows under Ben’s eyes and a fever-bright flush. “No.”

“—Give me up, let me down, or—” Ben has to stop to cough again, but shoulders onward. “Desert me?”

“That was not worth the coughing it brought on,” Sammy tells him firmly. “Can I get you some water? Do you need anything?” 

“Will you, um…” Ben might be blushing. It’s hard to tell under the fever’s burn, but Sammy’s pretty sure he is. “If it’s okay, I mean. Sit by me?” 

Sammy thinks Ben means on the chair by his bed till Ben scoots over slightly, making room for Sammy to sit on the bed next to him. 

And Sammy doesn’t give a shit about contagiousness or Proper Hospital Procedure or anything besides Ben, still hesitantly smiling up at him. “Of course, Ben. Always.” Careful not to jostle Ben, he gets up onto the hospital bed to sit next to Ben. 

Ben curves into Sammy like one side of a parenthesis, leaning his head on Sammy’s shoulder and tucking his legs up against Sammy’s. “You caught me,” Ben murmured. His eyes are half-shut; his breathing slowing into the heavy rhythm of sleep already. He blinks at Sammy, gaze fogged with sleep. “When I fell.” When he yawns, Sammy can hear the crackle at the end of the breath with heartbreaking clarity. 

“In the station, yeah,” Sammy agrees. 

“No, before that.” Ben shifts to curl closer to Sammy and shakes his head. “All th’times I fall. You’ve got me.” He smiles at Sammy again. “Love you,” he breathes, before he slumps over into sleep. 

Sammy wraps an arm around Ben, steadying him as best he can. “I love you too,” he gets out around the lump in his throat. Ben sighs in his sleep, and Sammy feels safe enough to lean down and kiss the top of his head. 

He knows they have a while to go until Ben’s okay again. But he also knows he’s not going to leave Ben’s side again until then.

For now, that will be enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> i had walking pneumonia once, and drew a lot from that. it's like a weaker version of regular pneumonia, which ben has a very very bad case of, but i'll still remember how scary it is to breath in and have it feel like twisting pain, and to hear fucking like, snap crackle pop in your lungs as you do so. thanks to that and to webmd and various other hospital sites for informing this!  
> hope you like it, teyla!! :D  
> 


End file.
